Author: omc_admin

Spotify’s ad business is floundering.”We have simply been moving too slowly,” CEO Daniel Ek said on the company’s latest earnings call.Spotify has said it wants advertising to make up 20% of its overall revenue. As of June, that figure stood at 11% — a share that has barely budged over time. Second-quarter ad revenue was down 0.7% versus the prior year, and media industry analyst Brian Wieser pondered in a recent note to clients whether it had plateaued.Chris Camacho, CEO of the ad agency Cheil UK, said cracks in Spotify’s ad business have been visible for some time. That contrasts…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pictured, speaks with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event in Tokyo on Feb. 3, 2025.Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesGPT-5 just launched. GPT-6 is already on the way.That’s the message OpenAI CEO Sam Altman delivered to reporters in San Francisco last week, offering a rare glimpse into the company’s evolving product road map, as well as its missteps.Altman didn’t give a release date for his company’s next artificial intelligence model, but he made clear that GPT-6 will be different and that it will arrive faster than the gap between GPT-4 and…

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) extended emergency orders aimed at strengthening Puerto Rico’s electric grid. Issued in May, the orders have enabled Puerto Rico’s government to fix and restore lines and ensure sustained energy resilience. DOE said in a statement that extending the orders would ensure this critical work could continue throughout the peak summer demand season. “A reliable and secure power grid is essential for modern life, and the residents of Puerto Rico deserve solutions now. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are able to take action, moving from years of instability toward measurable, lasting progress”, U.S.…

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has revealed its latest average Henry Hub natural gas spot price forecasts in its August short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released on August 12. According to that STEO, the EIA sees the Henry Hub spot price averaging $3.61 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2025 and $4.34 per MMBtu in 2026. The EIA’s previous July STEO projected that the Henry Hub spot price would average $3.67 per MMBtu this year and $4.41 per MMBtu next year. Both STEOs highlighted that the 2024 Henry Hub spot price averaged $2.19 per MMBtu. A…

Air India CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson said that the company is committed to support the GoI’s initiatives to promote sustainable development in the aviation sector Air India and Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on the supply of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). According to the official press release, the move is part of efforts to reduce emissions in Indian aviation and aligns with the country’s target of achieving 5 per cent SAF blending target by 2030.The airline said that it is pursuing measures such as fuel efficiency, route optimisation,…

One Austin-based startup may have the answer to a crucial problem that the AI industry is still stuck on: how to power it all.Aalo Atomics says the answer isn’t the hulking nuclear plants of decades past. Instead, it’s betting on mass-manufactured smaller reactors built to sit beside the data centers they’ll fuel.That pitch earned the company a hefty check. Aalo recently closed a $100 million Series B, CEO Matt Loszak told Business Insider. Valor Equity Partners led the round, and Harpoon Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and others participated, bringing Aalo’s total funding to north of $136 million.The startup’s trajectory shows just…

InPlay Oil Corp. said its Q2 production surpassed expectations by reaching around 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). The outperformance was driven by base production performing above expectations and wells brought onstream in March significantly outperforming InPlay’s type curves by around 135 percent on average based on the first 120 days of initial production, the company said in a news release. Current production based on field estimates remains at 19,400 boepd even though no new wells have been brought on since March, InPlay said, adding that it now expects 2025 average production to be at the upper end…

A Lukoil refinery in the Russian city of Volgograd is on fire after being hit by Ukrainian drones overnight, Andrey Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said on Tuesday.The Volgograd refinery is Lukoil’s second-biggest crude processing facility in Russia and a key fuel supplier to the southern federal district in the country.Russia has said it had shot down 13 Ukrainian drones over the Volgograd region on August 19, the Kyiv Independent reports.The attack on the Volgograd refinery is the latest in a series of at least half a dozen drone strikes at refineries in Russia from Ukraine since the beginning…

BOSTON (AP) — Rip currents are one of the coast’s greatest dangers and account for the most beach rescues every year. Hurricane Erin is bringing the potentially deadly currents to the East Coast this week.About 100 people drown from rip currents along U.S. beaches each year, according to the United States Lifesaving Association. And more than 80 percent of beach rescues annually involve rip currents.Already this year, there have been at least 27 people killed from rip currents in U.S. waters, according to the National Weather Service. Hurricane Erin brought evacuations to North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Tuesday, a day…

India is breaking renewable energy records, especially in solar capacity additions and output, but it has been forced to curb solar generation during periods of low demand to keep its grid stable.   Solar output is being reduced to ease congestion in access to the grid, due to delays in transmission projects and new plants coming online ahead of schedule, India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has told Reuters.The need to curtail solar power generation highlights the setbacks of booming capacity installations if there isn’t an adequate expansion of power lines and distribution and transmission upgrades.India saw record-high power generation…